Dividing by zero — the fundamental no-can-do of arithmetic. It is somewhat surrounded by mystery, and is a constant source for internet humor, whether it involves exploding microcontrollers, …

We are all familiar with the idea of a hologram, either from the monochromatic laser holographic images you’ll find on your bank card or from fictional depictions such as Princes Leia’s…

When Microsoft announced the Xbox adaptive controller earlier this year, many were pleasantly surprised at how adaptive it truly was. The controller features 3.5mm jacks for easily connecting any e…

Ever since a Dutch businessman peered into the microscopic world through his brass and glass contraption in the 1600s, microscopy has had a long, rich history of DIY innovation. This DIY fluorescen…

Throughout human history, people try to make the biggest, the fastest, and — sometimes — the smallest. [Hellmood] falls into the latter category and proves it with a 64 byte interactive…

The latest craze in revolutionary materials science is no longer some carbon nanotube, a new mysterious alloy, or biodegradeable plastic. It seems as though a lot of new developments are coming out…

Whenever [MakerMan] hits our tip line with one of his creations, we know it’s going to be something special. His projects are almost exclusively built using scrap and salvaged components, and…

Neural networks are a key technology in the field of machine learning. A common technique is training them with sample data, and then asking them to create something new in the same vein. AI resear…

Lightsabers are an elegant weapon for a more civilized age. Did you ever consider that cutting people’s hands off with a laser sword means automatically cauterized wounds and that lack of blo…

Wind turbines are great when the wind flow is predictable. In urban environments, especially in cities with skyscrapers, wind patterns can be truly chaotic. What you need, then, is a wind turbine t…

[Integza] built a Tesla turbine and wanted to know how fast it was spinning. However, he didn’t have a tachometer, and didn’t want to buy one. After a false start of trying to analyze t…

Disco balls take a zillion mirrors glued to a sphere and shine a spotlight on them. But what if the ball itself was the light source? Here’s a modern version that uses addressable LEDs in a 3…

Quick, what’s the price of Bitcoin? Is it lower today than yesterday? Are you overdrafting your Lamborghini account? What if you had an easy way to tell at a glance how much you could have ma…

We never really thought about it before, but a traditional barcode or QR code is pretty two dimensional. A 3D barcode sounds like marketing hype but the JAB (Just Another Barcode) system adds a thi…

You’ve likely heard of Nitinol wire before, but we suspect the common base knowledge doesn’t go much beyond repeating that it’s a shape-memory alloy. [Bill Hammack], the Engineer …

If your eyes are 20/20, you probably do not spend much time thinking about prescription eyeglasses. It is easy to overlook that sort of thing, and we will not blame you. When we found this creation…

In the news has been yet another router botnet. [Hui Wang] and [RootKiter] of 360Netlab announced their discovery of what they call the “BCMUPnP_Hunter” rootkit. They estimate this botn…

All the cool kids are doing it these days, or more like for many years now: you can get a laser cutter for a song if you don’t mind doing your own repairs and upgrades — you know, being…

Father-and-son team [Wade] and [Ben Wagle] have developed and extensively tested two great walker designs: TrotBot and the brand-new Strider. But that’s not enough: their website details all …

An electric guitar is all about stage presence. Need to be cooler than a single guitar? No problem — there are double neck guitars. Need to be cooler than that? No problem, the guy from Cheap…